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Mozilla and Partners to Kick off Second Round of Firefox OS Launches in More Markets Around the World

Mozilla today announced that new launches of Firefox OS smartphones will begin soon with more devices and in more markets around the world. This news follows just weeks after the successful launches of the first Firefox OS smartphones, the ALCATEL ONE TOUCH Fire and the ZTE Open.

“The positive market reception of the first Firefox OS smartphones demonstrates that people like the user experience and openness we’re building with Firefox OS,” said Jay Sullivan, Mozilla Chief Operating Officer. “We continue to enhance Firefox OS to deliver the best experience for the many people around the world buying their first smartphones. We are looking forward to seeing the response to the next round of Firefox OS launches.”

Yotam Ben-Ami, Director of Open Web Devices at Telefónica, said, “These first launches of Firefox OS in Spain, Colombia and Venezuela have surpassed our expectations demonstrating a strong consumer appetite for a great value and open smartphone offer. We now look forward to bringing the benefits of Firefox OS to our customers in Brazil and three other Latin America markets during Q4 2013 as well as making it available through many more Telefónica operating businesses during 2014.”

Thomas Kiessling, Chief Product and Innovation Officer at Deutsche Telekom, said, “Deutsche Telekom’s launch of the first Firefox OS smartphone in Poland is very successful. We are really pushing the device to all T-Mobile Poland’s points of sale and experience that people are absolutely keen on exploring the possibilities of the new operating system. We are now excited about the upcoming sales start for our congstar customers in Germany. And we will bring the first devices to Greece and Hungary soon.”

Telenor also confirmed plans to launch Firefox OS phones in Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro before the end of the year.

John Jackson, IDC Research Vice President said, “Many of the new markets Firefox OS is expanding into offer significant volume potential, and all contribute Web ecosystem benefits. This growth underscores operators’ strategic commitment to the platform and their satisfaction with consumer adoption to date. It is striking that the Firefox OS is entering its second phase of expansion at a time when other aspiring third smartphone platforms continue to struggle for position, scale, and sustainability in the competitive market. The platform continues to add new features that are appropriate for its target markets, striking a balance between value to consumers and affordability. Perhaps more importantly, Firefox OS continues to attract new apps and content partnerships. These are like lifeblood for a platform and should further help drive consumer adoption and spur innovation in developer communities around the Web.”

New Firefox OS phones will have the latest version of Firefox OS (1.1), which includes many performance improvements and new features like MMS messaging. Existing Firefox OS users will be upgraded to the latest version soon.

About Firefox OS

Firefox OS smartphones are the first devices powered completely by Web technologies to deliver the performance, personalization and price you want in a smartphone with a beautiful, intuitive and easy-to-use experience that is unmatched by any other phone.

Firefox OS has all the things you need from a smartphone as well as the things you want like built-in social integration with Facebook and Twitter, HERE Maps with offline capabilities, much-loved features like the Firefox Web browser, the Firefox Marketplace and much more.

Firefox OS features a brand new concept for smartphones – an adaptive app search that literally transforms the phone to meet your needs and interests at any moment. Simply start to type what you are interested in to instantly get a whole new customized phone experience based on your needs.

You can discover apps to use once or download to keep, giving you a completely customized experience with the exact content you want, when you want it.

Firefox OS phones come with Firefox Marketplace, which has popular global apps you want and relevant local apps you need. New and featured apps in the Firefox Marketplace include Badoo, Box, EA games like Poppit, Facebook, KAYAK, SoundCloud, The Weather Channel, TimeOut, TMZ, Tuenti and Twitter.

Firefox OS is an extension of the Firefox desktop and mobile browsing experience that hundreds of millions of people know and love, so you can expect all the security, privacy, customization and user control Firefox always delivers.

Mozilla is working on Firefox OS with more than 20 hardware and operator partners to deliver a better and more attainable smartphone experience to first time smartphone buyers around the world, as only 21 percent of global mobile subscribers have smartphones (according to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers).